Dear Toni Braxton, Please Go Play in the Snow Quietly

I have really come to love Toni Braxton from watching her and her sisters on the Braxton’s Family Values every Thursday—I truly have—but she is really pulling me back with the commentary on her dating life and it seems to be getting worse.

It was sort of cute when she called dating a white man “playing in the snow” on Anderson Cooper, but her appearance on Chelsea Lately last night was just…I have to say it, ignorant.

She told Chelsea Handler she’s playing in the snow—again—and said, “It’s kind of nice. It’s something different.” Then she said the man’s skin is different. “The skin feels different, that’s kind of nice. It smells different… Is that in my head? I can’t explain it.”

She didn’t even catch on when Chelsea cleverly, and obviously, made fun of her when she said, “No you can’t explain it because when you try to explain it, you sound totally racist but you’re not.”

Then to throw all black people in the same, “I don’t do anything that involves nature and getting my hair wet” boat, she says, “He likes hiking–black people don’t hike; kayaking, is that how you say it—that stuff too. But other than that, it’s the same.”

Toni says she’s also dating her ex-husband and hasn’t slept with “the white guy,” as Chelsea called him, since they’re only six-eight weeks into their relationship, and because she’s been on lock down for 10 years, she says “I’m not comfortable with the Slore in me yet.”

Oh Toni, where do we begin? The good thing is that she’s Toni Braxton, meaning no one is coming to her for commentary on anything of substance, and white people probably don’t even know she’s still making music so hopefully this foolishness can be swept under the rug. But can you imagine the outrage if a white person said black people smell differently—even jokingly? Apologies would have been demanded within minutes. But here she goes saying they smell different, like wet dog perhaps? And feel different? C’mon Toni, maybe it’s just been too long since you’ve felt skin other than Keri’s?

In 30 seconds she became the poster child for the inspiration behind every black girls do run, black girls swim, black girls like nature campaign there is. Yes, some white people are a little more nature-loving and adventurous than black people but black people don’t hike Toni, really?

And what’s up with the “Slore in me” comment? I know sometimes women like to play with that word to sort of give them a pass to be sexually liberated, but not when you’re 40-plus and dating. I need her to stop trying to play cute, naive, jungle fever sex kitten and be a grown non-condescending woman. If “white guy” has even half of a brain, he’ll exit stage left immediately.

Watch the embarrassing clip below and peep the end where she gives Chelsea a little lesson in Russian: “I don’t know if you know Rosetta Stone, but if you say ‘yellow blue bus’ that means I love you.” Somebody take all mics away from this woman unless she’s singing into it.

What do you think about Toni Braxton? Is there any hope for her career revival, much less her dating life?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.